The Heresy of Dr Dee

home is but a few miles away, see, and I can testify that this particular day was one of an unusual stillness. Not a breath of wind in the Radnor Forest.’

The judge nods, extracting a paper from the pile before him.

‘I also have a statement here, signed by the son of Master Hie-well Griffiths’ – flinging a cold glance at poor Vaughan – ‘giving testimony that he was at that time burning twiggery from a tree- felling not two fields distant from the point in the river where his father met his death and felt no hint of a breeze. Saying the smoke from his fire rose steadily throughout the morning.’

Strong evidence, Dudley thinks. In the absence of a specific Witchcraft Act, cases of causing injury or death by force of magic are become difficult to prove. Given her own interest in magic and alchemy, Bess might dither for years over this issue. Meanwhile, the power of malevolence conjured through focused thought and satanic ritual will go unchecked.

Dudley, who more than once has felt himself to be the target of a distant hatred made toxic by dark arts, is himself convinced that Prys Gethin, or whoever else he claims to be, does indeed have a stare of practised malignancy through that one eye.

And Dudley also knows that, where the use of magic is concerned, a sense of self-belief takes the practitioner more than halfway along the shadowed road. He stares hard at Prys Gethin.

Look up, you bastard, look up.

‘These two deaths,’ Sir Christopher Legge says. ‘How far apart were they, in time?’

The prisoner makes no move. His head is bowed, as if for the rope, as the sheriff replies.

‘My Lord, the fever struck the night before the collapse of the bridge.’

A hiss rushes round the old barn as if a cold river has been directed through it.

‘I think,’ the judge says over it, ‘that it is incumbent upon this court to learn more about the practice of witchcraft along this border. After our midday meal, I shall call the Lord Bishop of Hereford to give evidence. In the meantime, Sheriff, perhaps you might enlighten me as to the significance for this county, of the name Prys Gethin.’

XXXVI In Dark Arts

JOHN SCORY has removed his mitre and wears a small hat of an academic kind. He takes the oath with a knowing half-smile. Legge consults his papers, then sits back in his big chair and looks up.

‘My Lord Bishop, you are, I believe, my last witness.’

Scory looks perturbed.

‘Not the last ever, I trust, Sir Christopher. One would hate to think the fear of a Welsh curse might drive you from the Bench.’

Legge scowls. Dudley grins. He rather likes Scory, a bishop in perhaps his last see who gives not a whit for anyone, least of all an ambitious judge from London.

The light in here has gloomed since midday, the banners fading into shadow, the old barn’s beams and pillars giving the court the illumination of a forest clearing.

The judge starts again.

‘You’ve been Bishop of Hereford since…?’

‘Last year.’

Legge frowns. He evidently thought it was longer.

‘But in that time,’ Scory tells him, ‘I’ve studied in some detail the religious beliefs and practices on the fringes of the diocese.’

‘By which you mean the area in which we now sit?’

‘And some regions further west.’

‘You’re saying that beliefs in this area may differ in some ways from the accepted faith of the land?’

‘Only in the way that faith might be interpreted,’ Scory says. ‘Wales and the Border country are not noted as areas of religious rebellion, but old beliefs die hard.’

Legge waits. Now Dudley begins to see where the judge is going with this. He’ll have the court presented with clear proof that Wales is yet riddled with witchcraft and that it’s entirely reasonable to suppose that a man like Prys Gethin was schooled in dark arts.

It should make for an entertaining hour or so. Dudley has eaten passably well in the Bull, drained a flagon of the innkeeper’s finest cider and then emerged to find the whore, Amy, waiting for him in the marketplace. Telling him that if he comes to her after court’s out, she may well be able to point him towards the man he seeks.

Perfect. With any luck they could be out of here on the morrow, with the Wigmore shewstone all packed away. He has the money… and the menace, if required, as it usually is.

‘Coming out here,’ Scory says, ‘was a rather bewildering experience for someone used to softer climes. I found things remarkably different from Chichester in the south-east, where I was bishop in… in earlier times. There, for most people, worship was seen primarily as essential preparation for the life which is to follow.’

‘And is it not, my Lord Bishop?’

A suitably pious consternation creasing Legge’s brow.

‘Oh, most certainly it is, my Lord,’ Scory says. ‘However, in the wilder country, worship and ritual are seen also as serving a practical purpose in the surviving of this life. Isolated country people depend far more than do we upon a relationship with the land and its elements… perceiving themselves closer to the, ah, spirits which – under God – maintain the fertility of crops and stock, and hold the seasons in place.’

Legge’s eyes close in upon the blade of his nose.

‘Spirits?’

‘Country people, inevitably, are closer to what you may prefer to think of as the elements of nature. Not as close as our ancestors might have been but closer than most city people can imagine. Few have not had some experience of natural powers which have raised them up or – more often – reduced them to fear for their livelihoods. And life itself.’

Scory pauses, casts his gaze around the rustic courtroom as though it were become his cathedral. The air is clouded in here now, but not dark enough for candles.

‘My point is that they are constantly aware of the fragility of their lives and why a balance must be found and held. And, in finding this balance, are oft-times inclined – by instinct – to mingle the rituals and liturgy of the modern Christian church with the time-honoured customs of the area. Which some may see as witchcraft, but these simple folk—’

‘What are you saying, Bishop?’ the judge demands irritably. ‘That witchcraft is so deeply embedded in the religious practices of these counties that it goes unrecognised as heresy and blasphemy?’

Scory beams.

‘Precisely, my Lord. Were every man or woman who practises what we might consider a form of witchcraft to be brought before a court, most villages would be left derelict and the land untilled.’

Legge sits up, his chair creaking. This testimony has not taken the path which he – or Dudley – would have wished.

‘And what of curses?’

‘As old as time.’

‘And in your experience of this area, can curses yet kill?’

‘In my experience…’ Scory wrinkles his nose. ‘…a countryman believing himself cursed will oft-times curl up and die.’

‘You are saying the curse works.’

‘I believe that, in the right circumstances, some curses do indeed work. Especially, as I say, if a man knows himself cursed. If he falls ill, he’ll be inclined to believe the curse is come upon him.’

‘And the inflictor of the curse may issue it with this intent?’

‘Indeed,’ Scory says, gazing into the air. ‘However, I confess I’d find it rather harder to explain how such a man may seek to persuade let us say a bridge that its timbers are fatigued to the extent that the said bridge gives